


In Time, I stand

by zero_paradise



Series: Tales of Glory and Time [2]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Aged Up, M/M, Spin off of my other fic, Time Travel, black holes, rating for possible future chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25906969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zero_paradise/pseuds/zero_paradise
Summary: Lost in time, Elijah wakes in an ancient land. The least of his concerns is how he got there, the only thing that matters is that he gets back. Arcadia’s distant future is on the line. Help comes as voice telling him it will be alright, though help is also a Wizard and part-timer at the café, named Hisirdoux trying to fix time himself.
Relationships: elijah pepperjack x Hisirdoux, hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan/Elijah Pepperjack
Series: Tales of Glory and Time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880140
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	In Time, I stand

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is totally self-indulgent. No fucks were given lol. 
> 
> This is a spin off timeline to my other fic: [For My Glory, Where do I Stand?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271658/chapters/30366348)
> 
> Branching off as a result of chapter 22. As of my feelings right now it is canon to my fic, reading this isn’t required for the other fic – but will def help. If you haven’t read my other fic…Well this is going to seem very strange. Black hole time travel, Eli is a lot older.

  
  
  
  


**In Time, I stand  
Chapter 1: The Mistake **

  
“Oh mate, you aren’t supposed to be here.”

Voices played on repeat, a scratched record—going, going, going. Some voices never finishing and others always starting. Elijah had been sleeping. He had slept for ages and years, yet he was still exhausted. His body felt more lead that water and flesh, even his eyes too feeble to open. Was this death? Maybe it was dying, aware and useless to world, moving on as he stiffened and crumbled into nothingness. 

“How did you even get here, dude? You weren’t on the ship! What’s this gunk? Merlin is going to kill me,”

The stranger kept talking, he rambled about purple gook being worse than goblin guts. He kept asking what everything was, how did he get here? Eli wanted to answer him, he wanted to know himself. Where was he? Eli couldn’t summon the strength to even take a peak at who was asking, he was literally, just as much in the dark. Voices still played at the back of his mind, he knew something was wrong but the voice said,

“Everything is going to be fine, mate. I got you. I’m here.” His words were soft and sure, sometimes they shook. Concern wasn’t easily concealed when you were focusing on nothing but sounds and touch. Owner to the voices had had calloused hands, his fingertips nothing but evidence of hard use. He played Elijah the guitar and sang, voice a little often tune and cracked when the notes got to high. Was he smiling? Elijah wanted to. His stranger played his favorite songs.

“Don’t laugh mate,” the pop song turned guitar solo must have done something. He stopped singing about N-A-S-A and touched Elijah’s cheeks, thumb running over his lips. 

“You moved! You can hear me, I knew it! I’m Hisirdoux, you can call me Douxie.” The gentle stroke turned frantic hold, hands held his shoulders. Lucky Elijah didn’t think he had bones anymore, the grip would crack him in two.

“What’s happening, friend? Don’t like the name?” His words failed to make light of the terror in him.

No. That name, he hadn’t—he had. Eli didn’t know it but some part did. The hands stayed on his shoulders unawares of the phantoms of time and possibility that roamed over Elijah. His skin purpled and bruised, part of his heart cracked open. How many stitches were holding him together? A stitch for an infinite plain of possibilities. Not another. He couldn’t scream to put him back, no help was ever coming. He remembered. He was the solution. He was the answer, the last resort. He’d figure this out on his own! If he didn’t what hope did the have? Lives slipped through his fingers, he stole his lovers last breath. Elijah had no choice, if he failed… He wanted to go back, he wasn’t supposed to be here. There were so many other places, he didn’t know where anymore.

Lips trembled in a turbulent taciturn cage. His body a prison and his mind the gate keeper. The terror spurred movement in his cationic form. Elijah shook and seized in Hisirdoux’s embrace. He was pulled close, lavender, vanilla, and sandalwood—he gritted his teeth, damned if he didn’t know the smells as someone whispered him the answer. He had not smelled it before, but he would. The words were a knife along his spine, filleting him from tail bone to atlas, his cranium swelled and the darkness dotted with fireworks.

“Sleep friend, sleep.”

Commander.

Elijah woke with hope; he laid in devastation. The room was not fluorescent and energy propelled, nor was it his bed with his plaid comforter. The world wasn’t burning and crumbling around him, monsters weren’t just beyond the door. He did not need to know where he was to understand, he was far from home. His cheeks were damp. 

_It’s remnants of the pod. You’re crying, Pepperjack._ Two voices of two polar times explained. Elijah sobbed his hand successful in moving on demand. He was crying. He could move again! The snake like cords were gone. At once he was free and everything was wrong.

“You’re up!” 

Elijah flinched. He cupped the side of his head. The voice pierced through his skin and worked its way in and past a locked time. This was bad, he wasn’t supposed to be here. 

_Everything is fine, mate._

That’s what he said. Elijah might have looked like a deer in the headlights, the dullness in his eyes failed to hide the want laced in his gaze. He lifted his hands, time be damned. Who cared about the aches and knives working their way through him and rewriting every code and chance inside? Hisirdoux crossed the room in strides of two, he caught Elijah’s just as his muscles caved.

“I got you,” He smiled. He was close and everything about him had turned soft. All the aches worn under the bags of his eyes faded, lifted with his lips. He moved Elijah’s hand, intune with his silent wants and pressed Elijah’s palm against his cheek. “There, you see. I’m here.”

Elijah cried out, his back arched and electricity shot through him. “Stop!” What had he done?! There was already too many layers in his head and too many timelines to consider. He gasped and lurched away. His legs hadn’t moved on the own in years, the technology had kept him healthy. Muscles were there but he was still gangly. Elijah fell, his legs not up to speed, Hisirdoux caught him, arms around his chest. The pull of his embrace held Eli together in more ways than one. More of him seeped into Elijah. Too weak to push him away a second time, too comforted to tell him to stop, Elijah welcomed the needle to ruin him. The black hole would devour everything he would give and their very existance.

“Can you speak?”

Voices cried the same thing, they demanded he talk! Where had he been? “Help. Help. Please.” Elijah hid into Hisridoux’s chest, his voice raw and thin. How long had it been since he stepped into the pod? Which version of him had gotten through off track? Where was the cavern? 

“Did you know elephants have incredible memory? Mother’s can find where their children died. Wow. Totally inappropriate topic. Call me typical, but ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ greatest album ever. Harry Styles’ solo work? Brilliant. You like Ariana Grande. Sod it all, I can’t stop listening to her either. We’re odd. All of you is a little odd, but here we are. We’re fine. I got you.” He talked and talked, he weaved between music and tv shows. He explained the best way to make ramen in a microwave, then the proper way on the stove and insisted it should always be eaten with siracha. The stranger talked to Elijah as he had when he had been frozen. 

The voices and the other versions of himself halted, Elijah could only hear Hisirdoux. How long had it been since he not heard the scream of time rattling inside him?

“Where am I?” Elijah seized the clarity and proximity, he wouldn’t have to speak in anything more than a whisper so close to the other.

“Camelot.”

“I’m from Arcadia Oaks.”

“Modern age?” Hisirdoux asked.

“I can’t,” Elijah squeezed his eyes and pressed hard into the solid frame. He was from modern times he just didn’t know which time. Had Arcadia been taken over? Which crime, which villain? 

This was wrong! All wrong! How could he make a mistake like this? 

“Alright, alright,” Elijah was thankful not to be pressed and settled for the gentle back rub and breath on his ear. However long it had been in his infinite loop, it had been too long without touch. 

“You don’t seem all too shocked to be in Arthurian times, 12th century.”

“I have a black hole in my blood.” Elijah was shocked. Terrified actually. The feeling was there, the understanding that he should be afraid but part of him was still lost somewhere. His mind warred and focused with another reality, how bad was Camelot when he had the stars in his blood? Was that what the pod had been doing, pumping time and space through him? He shivered, yes, but he needed to get back in the cavern for its work to be done. He needed to answer the call Midnight had issued or Arcadia would be ruined. Space would collapse upon itself taking every version of hope with him. Every death would be on his hands, not just _his_. Nothing would wash away the blood on his hands or the carnage burned into his retinas, but he still had a chance to change it. Keep the memory, spare the action. He alone would be a living memorial to the lives lost in the other time lines.

“Well. You win this round, eh?” His company’s fingers were feather light in Elijah’s hair, he pulled his bangs to his chin. His hair hadn’t stopped growing? Douxie smiled and tugged on the knot on the top of his head, flicked his head, and his hair danced. Eli eyed the blue streaks, whenever they were, he knew dyed hair was not common to the time.

“Who are you?”

“A friend. I live in Arcadia too. Back here to fix a few things,” Elijah eased back onto the bed with Douxie’s help. It was hard, like laying on rocks and hay! He would still take it over being suspend in the thick gelatinous solution his pod produced. To feel discomfort that wasn’t a tube down his throat or in his veins was to live again! Douxie hands kept him steady until he was flat on his back, wary of Elijah turning back into jelly. His bones had been mush, he carried him like a drowned rag doll. 

“Am I…Alone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think anyone else came with us.” Douxie pushed his hair behind his ear, “you look better. You’re still bruised, but not leaking.” 

“I’m sorry,” Eli’s voice cracked. He wasn’t wearing anything but a tunic, black and ill-fitting like a potato sack. What did he have to apologize for? He still didn’t know how he landed here or how Hisirdoux was staying so calm? The worry pulled the comfort out of his face,

“Now, now. None of that. You can trust me, I’m”

“Hisirdoux.” Elijah answered, his recollection was fickle and victim to the whims of time. The cadence of Douxie’s voice and tones of his songs still spun in his head, finally a new record Eli could listen to. He was cursed to play voices on repeat, damned to never know which version of himself had heard them. Had every other song been sung now? He couldn’t rule out some of them might be another time, so many were to come. “Shit,” Elijah covered his face, tears coming again. 

“Am I alive?” If it were only an existential crisis the answer wouldn’t be as crucial. He didn’t know how Douxie understood or why he thought to take Elijah’s hands. He wasn’t gentle, he held them firm and his thumbs pressed into a bruise. The pain was real.

“We’re alive, we’re well, and I am here. Look at me,”

“Elijah.” He gasped his name. “Pepperjack.” Eli put their hands at his temple, he wasn’t praying but begging for the universe to make everything stop. “I can’t turn it off,” he cried shoulders hunching and followed the path of the tear drops.

Elijah Pepperjack. Pepperjack. Where is Pepperjack, Steve had been crying and worrying for his friend. This was him but how could it be? He looked older. He had been burried in glass, swamped in tubes, and liquid so thick it should have drowned him. Douxie lifted the purple bubbling substance with a wave of his hand. Archie bid he keep his distance and place it in a jar with a spell locking its contents, lest his other younger self get curious and foolish. Someone would have said something if their Elijah had been stowed away in a mason jar, wouldn’t they?

The man in his arms didn’t feel normal, something about his skin vibrated. The closer he was, the more he felt time shift. It slowed, it stopped, if he was being honest. He had been entering the room whilst the baker brought the bread to the royals; when he exited the same baker had just passed and the bread was still piping hot. He hadn’t wanted to believe it and tested as much as he could without anyone noticing the multiple visits. Only Archie new of their new ward, all be damned if he gave Merlin another reason to scold him. Thank the cosmos he hadn’t cued Claire or Steve in. This was something more and he needed answers before action.

Elijah would not give them easily. They introduced themselves the same way four different times, after sleep took him it was like he reset. When he finally called his name upon entering the door, he knew it was time to investigate it further. 

“Elijah,” he sat beside him. Eli liked it when they touched, he was most attentive when reality was more than just the space around him. His mind was lost and contact guided him. He was shy at first, only letting their shoulders brush, then their thighs, and finally he put his arm around Eli’s shoulder. The move centered Elijah’s attention and Hisirdoux felt himself important. He practiced healing magic, he wanted to give space between them when he could. Elijah needed to think on his own with every part of his mind that snapped back into place. The hours drifted by with Elijah, or was it seconds? He couldn’t say. He felt like he was at Eli’s side for days at a time, healing him was a laborious. The results were thankfully evident, his mind was a puzzle and the pieces were going together. No matter how long he felt he had been with Elijah, the moment never extended past a second beyond the door.

More and more, he took his time. 

“I have something.” Douxie sat so their knees touched. He had only just gotten the time map from Merlin and the team needed to keep it secret, no one could know how fucked the timeline was. But he needed to see what happened when Elijah was introduced. Beyond this room he knew the map wasn’t accounting for him. He was a world of his own.

Eli watched with the same vested interest, his awareness growing by the infinite seconds that were his in the room adjacent to time.

The stream glowed red, flicked blue, green, then pulsated purple in a swirling loop. Flashes of Elijah in a case flicked faster than a candles flame or the shutter on a camera. A hyper burst of Elijahs scattered before them, one melding into the other.

“I’ve never,”

Eli watched with a sad smile, his confusion all but melting away, an understanding washing over him. “I see.” He closed the lid with a certain expertise a stranger to magic shouldn’t have. He might not have solved the puzzle, though Douxie suspected he just put down the last border piece.

“Douxie, I don’t know how I got here with you. But I think I’m an important one.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fuck, I.” He held his head, the same splitting headache cutting into him. “I don’t know which year I am. I…We’re all trying to get to the end.”

“The end?”

“Everyone died, it wasn’t what we thought. I. I sent my message across time. And every version of me, in that moment, different years…We converged.” His body lurched forward, gagging on the memories. A version of himself sick to his stomach. 

“You went back in time and what now?”

Elijah leaned in, his chin tilted and hair cascaded over his shoulder. “I’m probably,” his body jolted, Douxie’s shoulder gave him more support than his neck. Whispers from the future weakened him. He wasn’t supposed to know this yet, “One…Hundred? Forty?”

Laughter bubbled and popped, “what? I’m sorry. What? Bloody,” Hisirdoux was baffled. Elijah looked his age, granted he wasn’t one to judge. Nine hundred years wasn’t normal for mortals and neither was one hundred and forty! He touched Elijah’s cheek, the gentle hum of time and a pull of something otherly on his skin.

“Who are you, Elijah Pepperjack?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen Douxie.” Hisirdoux had never been apart of his timeline, the rift of this consciousness was new and forming, the possibilities were opening. Danger. This was dangerous to the cause. He had been placed in times hold on a certain day and year, all of them where. What would happen if he returned hours older? Seconds, days, weeks than the rest? He had never met Hisirdoux before but now he was part of his past and the future had changed. 

“Shit. Shit.” The message pounded in his head, the importance of his absence. The doors to the cavern had to remained lock! No one could get it!

“Hisirdoux, no one can know I’m here. This, this—” His hands flailed, more of Elijah came alive the longer he was separated from his capsule. He thought for a moment he could have tea and it would be smoothed over. Cabra would smack sense into him. But that wouldn’t come, and he was still coming together. “No one.” Elijah grabbed Douxie’s collar and twisted the fabric, the embroidered fabric stiff against this thumb. This was the commander. He, as Midnight ,had a sole responsibility. 

“I have to get back.”

“Don’t we all,” This was a universal truth, they were all places they were not meant to be. He pressed Elijah’s hand to his chest, he worked out the vice grip and eased out the tension until it lay flat over his heart. “Eli, time is odd here.” He tried to explain how it didn’t move behind these doors, he didn’t understand how it could be centralized and ostracized from the world.

“It’s the event horizon, I mean, I’m the.” Eli’s face pulled again, both pained and frustrated. He held his hands up as if he could see the very threads of time slipping through his fingers. “The farther you are from a black hole, the slower time moves. The closer, the faster.” His lives compressed and lived out at different rates. 

“I don’t understand how it can be contained? But I’m here. And so are you.” He was the epicenter! They were flying through time, their seconds could be weeks to those at the opposite end of the black hole. He couldn’t explain the details, he had only ever lived it. He would live it again soon.

“Maybe it’s shifted,” He crossed his legs and held his ankles, “me? Outside of the cavern it’s not just in a pod. Now it’s a wave and if you’re here on your on borrowed time stream, it’s like” His laugh waivered and his eyes rolls with his shoulders. “Don’t cross”

“The streams!” Douxie finished, Eli couldn’t believe it! How long had he shared a Ghostbusters joke?

“Okay.” It wasn’t an explanation, but it was something. “What makes you different then? Why does our streams crossing matter?” Eli walked his fingers up Hisirdoux’s knee.

“Well,” Douxie had three settings, panicked, pissed, and playing the game. His eyes were heavy and his smirk smug and haughty. “I’m a wizard.” He explained he’d traveled back in time to fix something himself; he did not mention his companions. If the Elijah’s were one in the same, it wouldn’t be a physical paradox but a mental one. He didn’t know how humans would handle it, Eli’s mind already addled and altered in a constant limbo. He caught him looking over his shoulder and flinching when a sound hadn’t been made. The world inside him was infinite, his timeline an utter maze and impossible to navigate. 

The time map had flashed red, this Elijah was going to be a risk. Whatever his path was, he would have to get him back on it while playing apprentice and fixing everything else he fucked up.

“Douxie?” Eli’s hand settled on his knee. “You look lost.”

“Huh?” 

Elijah grounded him now. Nine hundred years and his time with people was still fairly casual. He had a few stints with Witches and Wizards alike but nothing stuck, he felt twisted and warped in his skin and it was easier to play the part of needing to focus on becoming a stronger wizard than anything else. It wasn’t a lie, he had to prove himself worthy for a staff! The rouse vanished, checked itself at the door, and stopped in time with Elijah. 

“I haven’t done this in a while. Sit. I mean. With someone.”

Hisirdoux wasn’t alone in the feeling. Elijah could remember each of his encounters, the kisses…The touches. As for feeling them? His skin was numb to the memories. No memory could overshadow the present. Eli sat himself closer.

“Too bad we don’t have TV or something.” Elijah didn’t do well in the one on one moments. He needed a buffer or else someone would see the truth. He was boring. He liked studying and adventuring, researching and preparing. _Steve didn’t need it,_ a whisper reminded him, _he liked adventuring with you too._

“Who needs all that, aye? But. You did have something I mean, a bag with you.” Douxie didn’t mean to keep it from him, part of him didn’t even want to say anything then. His moment of physical nearness lost. He brought Elijah the black messenger bag, packed and overstuffed. His heart followed suit to the room, it stopped. Elijah motioned for him to sit with him again before even glancing at his bag. He wanted company too.

“My glasses!” Eli slipped unfolded the taped specs, his head spun. It was blurred and wrong! Had his prescription changed that much?

“What’s this now,” Douxie ran his hand over the plastic frames, he peeled away the tape and snapped his fingers. The crack vanished. Elijah wondered when they had gotten cracked a second time.  
“Look here,” Douxie lifted Elijah’s chin, he framed his cheeks with his hands, his touch lingered longer than he needed, Eli was an ideal model. Still and patient. Eli stared, dark brown eyes lost in hazel. Time was nothing and he could hear silence. The sound of his heartbeat, nervous and sputtering as an old tune he missed. The heat of a blushing ears a forgotten piece of himself. The rough tips of Douxie’s fingers tilted his jaw up and up. The glasses floated between them just in front Elijah’s eyes.

On his knees Hisirdoux stared down through the glasses. It had to be his imagination the reflection of Elijah’s eyes had something to them. Blue streaked through his fingers and into the glass lenses. Elijah’s lips were plush and opening, he was so close he could see the cracks in his skin. Focus lost, the plastic warped the wide frames shrank.

“Fuzz buckets, fuck.” 

“Are you kidding?” Elijah popped his specs onto his face, “I can see!” His grin was infections and magnetic. Douxie sat back with their thighs practically on top of each other. 

“I don’t know quiet what you’re on about, but that’ll follow you through wherever you go. The glass will adjust to your eyes.” He waved his hand in a sweeping motion, “Wizard vision.”

Elijah’s head rolled and his body snapped in half, it wasn’t the first time he collapsed. Hisirdoux moved on instinct, Elijah was limp in his arms but came back quick. 

“I’m sorry,” He sobbed, “it was so loud.” Each word said was harder than the last, his breath ever out of his reach. His hands couldn’t rest like an earthquake moving under his skin. There was nothing Hisirdoux could do, every night he had to watch Elijah fight the spirits of his past and possible futures. 

“I’m here,” when he said this, even when catatonic Elijah seemed to listen. His breathes were less labored. If he could give him any relief, be of any use, he would. He mucked everything up for Merlin, he failed to steer Camelot and let history fall to ruin. The only good to come of this had been Claire, show was growing stronger by the day. Elijah’s ease reminded him he wasn’t worthless, he could be something for someone. His fingers laced with Eli’s and he kissed his knuckles.

The effect was instant. The shaking yielded, the warmth of Douxie’s lips spread over his body like a ripple in a lake. It chased the haunts and brought peace, a familiar ease, and a breath of something new. Elijah met his eyes,

“I shouldn’t have, this isn’t the time.” His fingers were held firmly in place, Elijah’s strength back and his will certain. He laughed suddenly, more of himself returning. His body blushed. Douxie kissed his knuckles again,

“H-hey!” Eli yanked his hand back with a snort, his smile still going strong, “That tickles.” The lie was both lame and charming. His eyes dropped, Eli knew he was being watched. He wanted to be seen, he wanted to be seen for so long! Hisirdoux recognized the need. A familiar had been solid company, he got him through the cold nights, and sick weeks. There were some moments that were still foreign to him. A play unfolding before his eyes, its name Elijah Pepperjack: Staring time! It’s fucked up but it’s never going to be right so live a little!

Elijah Pepperjack, could he be a new immortal? Hope was electric in his veins. His smile a spark and Elijah a fuel.

**Author's Note:**

> Eyyyyyyyyyyyyy. What cha think? I have way too many thoughts on this and I’m a horrible multi-shipper so watch the fuck out lololol. I love Hisirdoux’s character so, oh no Steve, watch out buddy. I’ll have to rewatch Creepslaying stuff to make sure my other fic -coughs- stays on track lololol
> 
> Let me know what you think! **Please!**
> 
> Also I'm on tumblr: [diedieri](https://diedieri.tumblr.com/)  
> On pillowfort: [Manas-Moment](https://www.pillowfort.social/Manas-Moment)  
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